The man­ag­er of the Ja­maica se­nior women’s foot­ball team, Chrys­tal Wal­ters, says while her play­ers are hap­py with the 4-1 vic­to­ry over Trinidad and To­ba­go in a friend­ly at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, on Tues­day, the squad is shak­en by the dev­as­ta­tion caused by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa in their home­land, Ja­maica. “It was bit­ter­sweet for us last night (Tues­day) with that win. The fo­cus (now) is most­ly on how our broth­ers and sis­ters back home are cop­ing with the dev­as­ta­tion there. It is in­deed im­pact­ful for us. It is af­fect­ing us.” Wal­ters, speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the Radis­son Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port of Spain, yes­ter­day, added, “It is heart­break­ing for us as a del­e­ga­tion whose sole pur­pose is to come and rep­re­sent the coun­try. But in a time like this, per­sons are look­ing on the out­side and see­ing a hap­py re­ac­tion; that is how we keep to­geth­er in the midst of a heart­break­ing sit­u­a­tion where the ladies are cop­ing and try­ing to fig­ure out where to go next. How do we as­sist as a team?”

Wal­ters added that team mem­bers who re­side in Ja­maica are yet to leave T&T, as the air­ports in Ja­maica (Nor­man Man­ley and Mon­tego Bay) are closed off. “For the lo­cal del­e­ga­tion we have ten per­sons who are stuck here for an­oth­er two days. We await con­fir­ma­tion lat­er to­day (yes­ter­day) from the Min­istry of Trans­port on the con­di­tion of the (Nor­man Man­ley) Air­port and us land­ing back in Ja­maica safe­ly, re­unit­ing with our fam­i­lies and see­ing where the re­lief ef­fort starts.” Wal­ters shared that the US- and UK-based play­ers de­part­ed this coun­try yes­ter­day. She fur­ther said the team wants to help bring re­lief to per­sons af­fect­ed by the Cat­e­go­ry 5 storm. “I must send heart­felt wish­es and love to every sin­gle mem­ber of the Ja­maica se­nior women’s team. Our hearts and prayers are with you and every­body back in Ja­maica. We would be ad­vo­cates in this re­lief ef­fort.”